DIWANG PINAY!

SAVE THE DATE for Diwang Pinay 2013!

Friday May 17 & Saturday May 18 at 8pm

Sunday May 19 at 3pm

WOW Cafe Theatre

59-61 East 4th Street 4th Floor

New York, NY 10003

Labor Trafficking: “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.”

-Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000

Diwang Pinay is a performance based on the true stories of four women who have survived labor trafficking. Like thousands of other overseas Filipino workers, landlessness, joblessness, contractualization and meager wages forced them to leave the Philippines to find work abroad. Recruited through an employment agency, they signed labor contracts with the promise of the American dream and an end to their hardships back home only to find themselves commodities in a labor export system and pawns in a labor trafficking scheme, which they struggle against and resist to this day.

This original production is a program of Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE)-GABRIELA USA and is in support of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns’ Stop Trafficking Our People campaign.

In previous incarnations, Diwang Pinay (“Spirit of the Filipina”) has been an annual performance and silent auction in New York City showcasing Filipina/ Filipina-American performers, writers, and visual artists. Diwang Pinay promotes the work of Pinay artists everywhere AND represents the expanding cultural backbone of the Filipina diaspora. This FiRE event is one of the few venues solely dedicated to providing Filipinas and Filipina-Americans a platform to display their triumphs and struggles through art, linking history to the narrative of today’s Filipina.

We are always looking for Pinay artists to participate in our programs! Please contact us at firenyc@gmail.com if you are interested in performing with FiRE!

Check out our past Diwang Pinay events!

NYC 2011: Hunter College

In 2010, we collaborated with Kabalikat Domestic Workers Support Network, a program of the Philippine Forum, in Woodside, Queens to write, produce and direct a series of plays about the lives, migration and motherhood of Filipino domestic workers living and working in New York City.

Under the creative direction of Candice Sering and Hanalei Ramos, the FiRE ❤ Kabalikat collaboration has been using Theater of the Oppressed methodology and BITAW cultural exercises to engage intergenerational dialogue between Filipino immigrant and Filipino American women.

Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE NYC) is a mass-based, grassroots women's organization serving New York City and its surrounding areas. We connect the Filipino diaspora to the women's struggle in the Philippines. We are women of Philippine descent, including those who are migrants, immigrants and US-born. We are Filipino women of mixed heritage and adoptees. We are a LGBTIQ-(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer/Questioning) friendly organization, inclusive of transgender people of Philippine descent.
FiRE is a proud member of GABRIELA-USA and BAYAN USA.

Thank you for donating!

FiRE is a volunteer run organization that relies on its community, please consider donating to us! Any amount is a contribution toward the global militant women's movement! SULONG!